The Indian Express: New Delhi: Sunday,
May 15, 2016.
A large
number of people who receive the Padma awards are from outside the list of
nominations received by the government, data obtained by The Indian Express
under the RTI Act shows.
According to
the data, only 58 of the 104 Padma awardees in 2015 were picked from the 1,840
recommendations received by the government. The other 46, said sources in the
MHA, were picked either by the Home Secretary or the Home Minister and
forwarded to Prime Minister and then the President for approval. Similarly, in
2016, 65 of the 112 awardees were picked from the 2,311 nominations, while 47
were from outside the list.
MHA sources
said it is a “usual practice” to pick some of the recipients from outside the list
of nominees.
The data also
showed that people who send their nominations for the Padma awards themselves
stand a very slim chance of receiving one. In 2015, out of 1,840 names received
by the government, 637 people were self-nominated. Only three of them won a
Padma award. In 2016, of the 720 people who nominated themselves in the
2,311-member list, only two were conferred the civilian awards by the
President.
The
information on the nominees and the people who recommended them was provided to
The Indian Express by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Complete
list of 2015 Padma Awards :
A total of
104 people received the awards in 2015 nine Padma Vibhushans, 20 Padma Bhushans
and 75 Padma Shris. In 2016, 112 people 10 Padma Vibhushans, 19 Padma Bhushans
and 83 Padma Shris received the awards.
Among them,
those who nominated themselves in 2015 were ophthalmologist Prof Yog Raj
Sharma, Arunachal Pradesh-based social worker H Thegtse Rinpoche and AIIMS
gynecologist Prof Alka Kriplani. In 2016, the two winners were commentator
Sushil Doshi and leader of the Telangana movement T V Narayana. All of them
received Padma Shri awards.
In 2015, of
the 58 picked from the nominees, four received Padma Vibhushans, 14 Padma
Bhushans and 40 Padma Shris. In 2016, of the 65, five received Padma
Vibhushans, 11 Padma Bhushans and 49 Padma Shris.
As per the
data, while senior BJP leader L K Advani got the Padma Vibhushan in 2015,
another Padma Vibhushan awardee, K K Venugopal, was conferred the honour the
same year on Advani’s recommendation.
The same
year, 17 people got the awards on the recommendation of 13 state governments,
eight were recommended by five Union ministries, nine were nominated by six
Union ministers, six were recommended by six BJP MPs and three were recommended
by the Padma Awards Committee.
For example,
Bibek Debroy got the Padma Shri on the recommendation of Laveesh Bhandari of
Indicus Analytics. Former Lok Sabha secretary general Subhash C Kashyap got the
Padma Shri on the recommendation of former Karnataka governor T N Chaturvedi.
Three Padma Bhushan recipients, journalists Rajat Sharma and Swapan Dasgupta
and advocate Harish Salve, and one Padma Shri, Dr Randeep Guleria, were
recommended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. Union Minister Uma Bharti
recommended Rambhadracharya and Saumitra Rawat.
In 2016,
fewer people recommended by state governments got the award one each from Goa,
Telangana, Chhattisgarh and UP and two from Andhra Pradesh. Two were
recommended by BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav and one by UP governor
Ram Naik. Ramoji Rao of Eenadu got the Padma Vibhushan on Jaitley’s
recommendation.
In 2015,
those who were picked from outside the list of nominees included Advani, Punjab
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, actor Amitabh Bachchan, social worker D
Veerendra Heggade, Karim Al Hussaini Aga Khan (foreigner), Swami Satyamitranand
Giri, former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami, head of the Sree
Siddaganga Mutt Shivakumara Swamy, American Hindu teacher David Frawley, Bill
Gates, Melinda Gates and Japanese Indologist Saichiro Misumi.
In 2016,
people picked from outside the list included Rajinikanth, Shri Shri Ravi
Shankar, Jagmohan, economist Avinash Dixit, Dhirubhai Ambani, theatre
personality Heisnam Kanhailal, sculptor Ram V Sutar, architect Hafeez
Contractor, Indu Jain and journalist Ashok Malik.
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